Date: December 1, 2016
Source: Kansas State University
Birds of a feather flock together
but they schedule parenting duties differently, according to a Kansas State
University researcher.
Brett Sandercock, professor in
the Division of Biology, and Eunbi Kwon, Kansas State University alumna and
postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech University, are part of an
international team of ornithologists who have published "Unexpected
diversity in socially synchronized rhythms of shorebirds" in the Dec. 1
issue of Nature. According to the research, mated pairs of wild shorebirds have
established diverse schedules for parental care of the nest.
"Understanding the ecology
of these birds and appreciating the diversity of the different ways they are all
solving the same problem -- how do males and females work together to
coordinate their activities at the nest -- is the reason this is appearing in
Nature," Sandercock said. "Until this work was done, there really was
no appreciation of this incredible diversity in strategies across this
interesting group of birds."
The complete study included data
from 729 nests of 32 shorebird species in 91 populations worldwide. Most of the
shorebirds in the study lay three to four eggs in a ground nest and cover their
eggs continuously so that one mate is responsible for the nest during a
particular period, called an incubation bout. The majority of the shorebirds
exchanged parenting duties within a range of every other hour to every 24
hours. A few incubation bouts lasted for up to two days on the nest before the
parents switched. "There is excitement and interest in trying to
understand rhythms in animals," Sandercock said. "The incredible
diversity we see across multiple species and sites within the species opens doors
for a bunch of future work to explain mechanisms underlying biological
rhythms."
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